Landscapes in-between. Highlands Urbanization and Resistance in the Andes (Cuenca, Ecuador)

Landscapes in-between. Highlands Urbanization and Resistance in the Andes (Cuenca, Ecuador) Promoter: Bruno De Meulder Co-promoter: Viviana d'Auria Abstract This research analyses the characteristic disperse occupation patterns of the inter-Andean highlands in southern Ecuador, exposing their nature as 'partly rural- partly urban' or in-between landscapes. Special attention is given to reveal the social-spatial practices related to land occupation, and the agency of people in the rendering of the existing spatial configurations. Based on a case study, the Paute River Watershed (PRW), the thesis defines and characterizes a type of landscape frequently dismissed as chaotic because its apparently indistinct morphology, and which does not fit the conventional categories of territorial classification. The Paute river watershed hosts a constellation of minor and disperse settlements that simultaneously complement and lean on Cuenca. The occupation dates back to pre-Hispanic times and evolved into the current communities that exploit a system of varied resources while using a wide range of skills acquired over generations. The system is heterarchical. Simultaneously, a hierarchical organization of space is at work, a colonial legacy that laid out a -still in force- double schema of geographically and ethnically uneven development between the city and the hinterland, the flat plateau and the slopes of the mountains, between the white and the indigenous population. By means of interpretative mapping, spatio-biographic narratives and 'chronographies' (graphic narratives that combine historical and spatial information), the study analyzes and qualifies the diversity of socio-spatial configurations and interactions accommodated by and facilitated in the disperse patterns. These, considered in combination with the Andean landscape characteristics, allow to unravel qualities of in-between territories like openness, diversity and flexibility. The study constitutes an urgent invitation for local planning agencies, urban designers and practitioners to question the widespread standard application of conventional planning wisdoms and to critically examine their impact in this kind of territories, where they are fundamentally denying the historically deeply rooted nature of the territory.status: publishe